The Pacific Beach Planning Group (PBPG) seated newly elected board members in April, elected new officers and subcommittee members and approved summer construction work on the Palisades Park comfort station (restroom), along with discussing a parking-district needs assessment.

The 20-member citizens advisory group, which makes land-use recommendations to the city, elected Brian Curry as chairman, Curtis Patterson as vice chairman and Hilary Lowe as secretary.

Longtime PBCP planner Eve Anderson said this year’s group is probably the most diverse ever.

“We have people ages 25 to 72 from real estate, engineering, architecture, sales, pharmacy and flower design backgrounds, among others,” she said.

City engineer Ali Darvishi said a construction project updating the Palisades Park restroom project has been delayed. He asked the group if it preferred to vote in favor of lifting the summer work moratorium so the project could be finished sooner.

The alternative, he said, is to have project completion delayed until fall honoring the moratorium.

“Unfortunately, the previous low bidder got disqualified three months through, so we had to go to the second-lowest bidder, and we lost four months,” said Darvishi. He said the choice now is between lifting the summer construction moratorium — meaning the project could be completed in August — or interrupting work during the summer and resuming after Labor Day, meaning the project wouldn’t be completed until November.

Planner Larry Emlaw asked if police and fire representatives had a preference for finishing the project sooner or later.

“No,” replied Darvishi.

The group unanimously approved lifting the construction moratorium to complete the project sooner, providing the city installs four portable restrooms and a temporary bike rack to accommodate summertime visitors.

It was reported that PBPG’s new planning and transportation committee recently held its first Traffic & Transportation Subcommittee meeting. Planner Paul Falcone offered a suggestion for what one of the initial objectives of the new subcommittee should be.

“A needs assessment, that’s the first step,” said Falcone, adding such a survey should consider “different times of day and different seasons” to get a complete picture of the current traffic and parking situation in Pacific Beach.

IN OTHER ACTION

• Curry said the recently sold Green Flash restaurant on the boardwalk has been painted and transformed into the Pink Flash. Anderson said the former Zanzibar restaurant is being converted into a hookah lounge.

“There are no regulations for hookah lounges and they’re allowing tobacco smoking on a front deck near where kids come skating by,” he said.